Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Roberts, 52, fell on a dock after having a "benign idiopathic seizure," said Kathleen Landin Arberg, the court's public information officer. She said that Roberts has "fully recovered from the incident" but that he would remain at Penobscot Bay Medical Center here overnight for observation.

Arberg said that the chief justice, who has presided over the court for two terms, received minor scrapes from the fall but that a "thorough neurological evaluation . . . revealed no cause for concern."

She said he experienced a similar event in 1993 but had no recurrence until yesterday.

That last sentence is reassuring. If he's had seizures before, especially so long ago, then he likely has a benign seizure disorder (i.e. mild epilepsy). It's worrisome when an adult who has no prior history of seizures suddenly has one. It can be a symptom of something more serious - brain tumors or a stroke, for instance. But according to news reports they've checked for all of those things and all is well. There's no reason to expect this to interfere with his job, either. If he flew airplanes for a living it would, but a seizure disorder has no bearing on his ability to think.

Seizure disorders were once called "the sacred disease." Hippocrates knew they were caused by a brain malfunction, but that insight was lost by the Middle Ages. A good overview of the basic physiology and just about everything you might want to know about seizures can be found here at the Epilepsy Museum. Yes, the Epilepsy Museum! The famous people and art pages are especially enlightening.